Early Steps
Early Family-Centered Prevention of Drug Use Risk
Stage 1 funding period: September 30, 2002–August 31, 2007
Current funding period: March 15, 2008–June 1, 2013
Principal Investigator, University of Oregon: Dr. Thomas Dishion; co-PIs include Dr. Bernadette Bullock.
Principal Investigator, University of Pittsburgh: Dr. Daniel Shaw; co-PIs include Dr. Anne Gill.
Principal Investigator, University of Virginia: Dr. Melvin Wilson; co-PI Dr. Frances Gardner, Oxford University
Funded by: National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health
The Early Steps Project is a multisite prevention study that evaluates the EcoFIT model in early childhood to reduce risk for a developmental trajectory leading to early-onset substance use/abuse and associated antisocial behaviors.
Early Steps, Stage 1
The first stage of the Early Steps Project began in 2002 and was funded for five years. A total of 731 families with a 2-year-old child were recruited at WIC offices in three states. Each family was visited in their home and asked to complete a set of activities and questionnaires when their child was 2, 3, 4, and 5 years old. The purpose of the study is to understand the contribution of the family to early social and emotional development and to evaluate the benefits of our family-centered intervention (EcoFIT) embedded in WIC service settings.
One half of the families were selected randomly to receive a Family Check-Up, which is adapted according to the home visit assessment findings. Additional services based on the results of the feedback session are designed to be collaborative, ecologically based, and brief. Some parents received periodic check-up calls following their home visit assessment date to report changes in the behavior of their young children. This study adapts the EcoFIT model (Dishion & Stormshak, 2007) to the mental health needs of parents with young children.
Progress
Summary of Findings: A sizable cadre of findings from follow-up data indicate that the Family Check-Up intervention improves child problem behavior and parents’ positive behavior support. Of particular importance, the Family Check-Up also had unanticipated positive effects, including improved child language skills, diminished child emotional distress and comorbid problems such as early childhood depressive symptoms, and reduced maternal depression. Evidence shows that the intervention is effective for families facing higher versus lower levels of social and family adversity. Fifteen publications describing Early Steps research findings are in print, in press, or under review.
Early Steps, Stage 2
The second stage of the Early Steps Project began in 2008 and is funded for an additional five years. The same 731 families from the first stage of the project are being asked to continue to participate in home visit assessments when their child is 7, 8, 9, and 10 years old. Families who previously received feedback sessions are being offered this service again, and parents will continue to receive check-up calls at 3, 6, and 9 months after their home visit assessment date, but for this stage they or their child report on the child’s activities during the preceding 24 hours.
Monitoring Project
The second stage of the Early Steps Project occurs concurrently with another grant-funded project, Parental Involvement, Extra-Familial Contexts, and Prevention of Drug Use Risk (aka the Monitoring Project), to learn about the influence of settings outside the home such as school, after-school care programs, and neighborhoods, on children and their families. This grant began June 1, 2007, and continues until April 30, 2012. The same 731 families are asked to grant permission for their child to be observed at school and in an after-school care setting each year following their Early Steps home visit assessment. They are also asked to permit their child’s teacher and after-school care provider to be contacted each year about completing questionnaires about the child. Each family’s neighborhood is observed twice per year. Current research is examining how family neighborhoods, poverty, and ethnic identity influence young children’s development. Information gathered may be shared with the parents receiving a feedback session through the Early Steps Project.
